


Fall in Love

by plastics



Category: Pumpkinheads - Hicks and Rowell
Genre: Anniversaries, Comfort Food, Established Relationship, F/M, Festivals, Halloween, Marriage Proposal, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26946217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastics/pseuds/plastics
Summary: Josiah loves fall many things about fall, but, most of all, Josiah loves DeKnock’s World Famous Pumpkin Patch & Autumn Jamboree.Okay, maybe not most of all.
Relationships: Josiah "Josie" Templeton/Deja
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Fall in Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burglebezzlement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/gifts).



Josiah takes great comfort in regularity. Sometimes, he thinks about living in one of those places without seasons, or where it’s day or night for months on end, and it feels as unlivable as shipping up to the moon without oxygen. Fall soothes him like a tall glass of water. He loves the cool wind at the golden hour. He loves the produce stands set up just off the road, fresh corn and blushing apples. He loves school—he spent hours upon hours decorating his very first classroom, dreaming of what his kids will be like, praying that they’ll love learning with him, too.

And most of all, Josiah loves DeKnock’s World Famous Pumpkin Patch & Autumn Jamboree.

Okay, maybe not most of all.

“I’m so excited!” Deja sings loud, trying and failing to match the tune of the pop song that was playing as they parked. She’s practically skipping, and Josiah has to walk fast to keep up. “This is the best time of the year and I’m finally free to enjoy it and you want to know why? Because screw college!”

She mimes screaming it to the heavens, but it’s little more than the movement in her lips and an exhale. Still, Josiah scolds lightly, _“Deja._ There are children.”

“What? I mean it. Everyone hypes it as, like, the time of your life, and then you have midterms and labs all October. It’s wack. I’m happy it’s over so I can get back to the finer things in life. Like festival snacks!”

This is, in fact, the fourth time they’ve come to DeKnock’s this fall to fulfill various pumpkin and snack needs, but DeKnock’s is just different on Halloween. They’re different—it’s their anniversary, after all, and this is their first full fall together in the same town since high school.

(Deja went all the way to Texas for school—amazing school, better scholarship, and she deserved every cent—and from the day she paid her deposit to that first term break, Josiah had gotten cold sweats and a knot in his chest thinking _this is it, this is it, we just became year-round more-than-friends and it’s already over._ But they’d gotten through that first fall apart, then spring, then every semester after that, and each time they came back together, it was as easy as returning to the succotash hut.

The chills never fully went away, and then after they moved in together post-graduation, it morphed into _this is it, this is it, we’ve got a real shot at this and I’m going to scare her away._ The years have made him smarter at reading Deja, though, trusting the love in her dimples.)

It still feels strange to step onto these hallowed grounds without an ounce of responsibility. Even four years removed, Josiah still knows every inch of this place: the scent of the farm animals this close to the petting zoo, kids overflowing with excitement, crowds gathering at the shops. Him and Deja walk in step to their first stop: The Pie Palace.

They’re between the afternoon rush and the evening rush—Deja specifically took a half-day to get home early—but the pie supply is always well picked over this late in the season. The kids behind the counter are on their phones, their overalls without a speck of flour on them.

“Wow,” Deja says, quiet and joking, just for Josiah, “We certainly never slacked off work this blatantly. And the uniforms! Wow.”

Josiah clears his throat and gestures down at himself. His farmer get-up isn’t all that much different. Lots of denim, lots of plaid, plus a cowboy hat and boots to really sell it. 

She shushes him. “That’s what I mean, babe. We made the whole thing sexy.” 

Deja is dressed as a scarecrow. It all seemed a little on the nose, but Deja swore that it was so expected that it circled back to ironic, and now they’re actually dressed up, Josiah has to admit that they look adorable. 

Once they’re up against the counter, Deja turns her scrutinizing gaze towards the display case. There’s the usual treats, the pies they order en masse: apple, caramel apple, cherry, blueberry, triple berry, pecan, hazelnut, oatmeal. All delicious, but the furrow in Deja’s brow made Josiah stand up a little straighter as he clears his throat and says, “Excuse me, I made a reservation for Josiah?”

Neither of the people behind the counter responds long enough to make him falter (has he seriously already gotten so lame that teens make him nervous?) but eventually one lets out a heavy sigh before going back into the kitchen. When she returns, it’s with two slices of pie filled with a warmly dark custard. 

Deja gasps. “Abuelita Carmela’s candied pumpkin pie! Josie! These always sell out, like, immediately, how did you…?”

“It pays to have friends in high places,” Josiah says as he pulls out his wallet, thrilled to have an excuse to say something that cool. And it’s even true, although any level of responsible managing could have come up with spacing out their orders. The Medina family are fantastic bakers, but they have the farm to manage, and while the old house is beautiful, it doesn’t have a professional kitchen. It's always been ridiculous to treat them the same as the pies that got skimmed off of the Kroger bakery.

They leave the palace once they have the slices in hand—one could blow their entire autumn fair appetite if they linger—and wander east towards the chicken races, mostly to make use of the bleachers. If pony people are a different species, then chicken people are at least another genus. It feels a bit like birdwatching as they observe fowl farmers flaunt their stock, study the track, place bets. 

The plastic crinkles as Deja cracks into her slice. Josiah almost just wants to watch her eat, but it feels a little weird, so he follows suit. The first bite is easily identifiable as some fine pumpkin pie, but he feels the enjoyment deepen as Deja moans. “Oh my god, this is ridiculous. The molasses makes the sweetness so deep—and the orange zest? Are you kidding me? How did I work here for four years and never manage to get my hands on this?”

“The good customers of the Pie Palace agree with you.”

“The good customers of the Pie Palace need to back off. This is all mine now.” She forks another piece into her mouth, her eyes drifting closed with bliss, and Josiah smiles automatically.

He’s distracted by a small voice saying to his left, “Hello, Mr. Templeton.” 

When he turns, one of his first graders is standing there, one of her moms behind her smiling encouragingly. Anni was one of the quieter students at the start of the year, but a few months in, it’s become clear that she’s whip-smart, too—not so much timid as conservative with her words. Josiah doesn’t let himself have favorites, but she’s definitely one of the students that makes getting through the first-year crush worth it.

“Hi, Anni! Are you here to watch the chickens?”

She nods. “Daniel has a Sussex in the race.”

Josiah follows her finger pointing out to the field, and his eyes land on a dark-skinned kid he recognizes from a family tree project a few weeks ago, no older than fourteen but looking just as serious as everyone else gathering at the starting line. “Wow! I guess we have someone to root for now,” and then when the silence stretches for a second, he leans back to say, mostly for Yasmin’s sake, “This is my—” he catches himself, corrects course, “girlfriend, Deja.”

Deja waves, mouth full of pie. In fact, after a glance downward, it might be _Josiah’s_ pie.

Anni’s eyes go wide. “You have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh,” she responds. She turns to face towards the track, then says, “Okay, Mama, we should probably get back our seats.”

She turns and climbs back down the bleachers, leaving Yasmin to make their goodbyes (and apologies, laughing). After a moment, Deja guffaws.

“Oh, god, you're going to be the only thing my class talks about for a week," Josiah groans, head dropping into his hands. He remembers in high school being a little in awe of the outgoing kids who could turn a whole class from learning about the Hapsburgs into a gossip session. It's not the only reason Josiah stuck with younger kids, but he had _thought_ he could at least count of them being less capable of outplaying him.

Deja throws an arm over his shoulder, soft and comforting, shaking him a little as she says, “Calm down, Josie. She’ll forget all about it in a week.”

He lifts his head. “One time she said she wouldn’t work in the same group as Tabitha because her little sister lied and got her in trouble at their daycare. This was _before pre-k._ I’m going to be walking into an inquisition Monday.”

Deja laughs again, delighted. “Kids are brutal.”

Then down on the track, Grandma Ferris calls out. The races are about to begin. Farmers place their chickens in the starting pin, each of them wearing identification brands. Corn is spread over the finish line. Grandma Ferris counts down from ten. Three, two, one—the gate is opened.

The first heat is over in less than fifteen seconds. 

“Wow,” Deja says.

“Huh. Did I know chickens were that fast?” Josiah says. “Am I afraid of chickens now?”

“Remember when Tommy Mooney had the tip of his pinky pecked off? They’re omnivores, it turns out.”

“Maybe I’ve been afraid of chickens this whole time.”

He lets Deja finish off his slice of pie as they finish off the night’s races. Daniel finishes third, and he’s hilariously surly about it on the hay podium until he’s engulfed by his family. It’s adorable enough to put a cap on Josiah’s developing ornithophobia.

“So, s’mores time?” Deja says.

“What? No!” Josiah yelps. “We end with s’mores!”

“We do not _end_ with s’mores, that’s ridiculous. The s’mores pit is right there! We end with Pumpkin Bombs. ”

“It’s unbecoming to eat s’mores before sunset.” It’s a weak argument—Deja doesn’t care much propriety or doing the right things at the right time (or, rather, she believes the proper thing to do is what she wants to do when she wants to do it)—but Josiah is able to argue a reasonable snack-to-activity ratio and schedule.

They hit up the Haunted Hacienda and Gourdy Golf, cider slushies and succotash, which will never be as good as it was in their hands, but the sun sets early these days, and the time for s’mores comes quicker than Josiah can prepare for.

“You know, we don’t have to have s’mores if you don’t want to,” Deja says.

“No! I definitely want s’mores.” When Deja still sideyes him, Josiah takes her hands and says, “Honey. I want s’mores so bad I can barely wrap my head around actually getting my hands on some.”

Another assessing look, but she smiles. “Good. I love cinnamon as much as the next person, but I could use something to break it up, you know?”

The pit has graduated from kids dueling over bags of Jet-Puffed to some sort of artisanal set-up, with a newly built hut handing out little dishes of freshly baked graham crackers, marshmallows, little cups of caramel, chocolate ganache, peanut butter—anything you could want. 

It all makes Josiah a little nervous. He sticks with the classics. Deja gets a little bit of everything.

Josiah’s marshmallow is ghost-shaped, and he feels guilty allowing it to go up in flames. He retracts from the fire with the marshmallow lighter than he usually went for. Not that it really matters—even with it smushed up with the chocolate and crackers, Josiah barely feels like he can eat. When he forces himself to take a bite, he can barely appreciate it past the sweetness.

Deja, though, is thriving, with sticky fingers and her options spread out around her. It’s enough to watch her enjoy herself, talk about her day, the next project that makes her light up with potential. She’s sucking the last of the s’mores off her fingers when she asks, “What are you smiling about? Your s’mores’ gone cold.”

“Nothing,” Josiah says, then corrects himself, “I’m happy. I’m happy you’re happy.”

“I really am,” Deja says. “And _I’m_ happy that _you’re_ happy that—”

Josiah laughs and cuts her off with a gentle kiss. Then, while he’s there, he licks a spot of caramel sticking to her cheek above the black face paint extending her smile. “Gross,” she says.

“Just for you,” he promises.

Around them, the sunset has stained the pumpkin patch pink. The crowd has picked up as families stream in after work, but there’s a peace in the chaos, too, in the raw joy of good food and fun spooks. It makes Josiah feel like a part of something big and beautiful.

Carefully, Josiah reaches into the deepest, most secure pocket on his overalls, over his racing heart. The metal feels warm between his fingers. Deja’s eyes go wide as he shifts onto his knee in front of her.

“Deja Williams,” Josiah starts, voice shaking. “I love you so much. More than I know how to say. But I hope that you’ll still allow me the honor of being your husband.”

Deja stares for an endless moment. Her eyes begin to water. She smiles, and Josiah feels his heart soar—

“You’re such a goober,” Deja sniffles, and Josiah goes a little cold.

“What?”

“Hold on.” Then she turns away from Josiah, and his hands shake as she digs through her bag. Every second without an answer feels like an eternity too long, but the little velvet pouch she pulls out isn’t buried very deep.

“I was going to wait until we got to Pumpkin Bombs, but this is cute, too, I guess.” Out of the bag, Deja pulls out a ring made of warm wood, with a slim stripe of gold running around it. Simple, but handsome. Josiah wonders frantically if he’d gotten bad information from her friends, the Pinterest she not-so-subtly leaves open on her laptop sometimes, but then she says, “So, how about it?”

“What?” His voice is high. He thinks oxygen is getting cut off from his brain.

Deja’s laugh is a balm, even in times like these. “Will _you_ marry _me?”_

Oh. Oh, god, there is a reason Deja’s the brains in their operation. The shaking doesn’t go away, but it starts to feel electric, thrilling. His throat is tight but he’s smiling uncontrollably as he says, “I asked first. You answer first.”

 _“Ugh,_ fine, you win this time. Yes.” Josiah is so happy it feels like it could explode out of him. It is exploding out of him, in frantic bursts of laughter as he slides his ring onto her finger, and she slides her’s onto his. He stops laughing long enough to kiss her, shallow, because neither of them can stop smiling. His face is burning. Deja is still crying, but the dimples are out in full force. Josiah is so, so in love.

“We’re going to get married,” he says, like it’s a miracle, and in some ways it is. That they both came to this pumpkin patch nine years ago. That he didn’t scare her off that first night. That he didn’t let the Myth of Marcy blind him for even one more night. Every moment since then.

“Aw, look at you kids!”

Even Tim’s arrival couldn’t truly ruin the moment, especially once he dolls out a few free concession tickets, but it expands their bubble outward. It feels like every inch of the fairgrounds has been lacquered with pure joy, the reality they’re building together. They’re holding each other’s hands so tightly. Neither of them can stop smiling. Adrenaline still zings through Josiah’s veins. Somewhere in the distance, they can hear the sharp sounds of audio equipment being set up on the John Colorado Springs Stage.

“You know, we never did get a chance to hook up in the corn maze,” Deja says.

“Uh, yeah, good, because it’s _gross.”_

“It’s _tradition.”_

Deja starts pulling Josiah to the Fritos pie stop and the maze standing behind it, and he does the only thing that makes sense—he follows.


End file.
